Close-Up With Google’s New QR Code Generator:

This isn’t Google’s QR code generator. They generate QR codes via their Chart Server (http://code.google.com/apis/chart/ ). That’s the raw tool, and it can generate a QR code of any sort you like. The front end for this Chart Server really lies in the generator from the ZXing project (http://code.google.com/p/zxing , I’m a developer), which is from Google too: http://zxing.appspot.com/generator It probably meets your expectations of a QR code generator more — what you’re reviewing here is simply one use of the generator from a different service, a URL shortener. By the way you can make a QR code link without copying and pasting and such. Just put “.qr” on the end of the goo.gl URL. Of course, you can right-click to save the image as with any image, etc. No, you would not embed such a link in a tweet, why? It’s like tweeting a picture of data rather than data. You’d use the...